If we want to understand a child and explore his/her world, it is the best way to look at the games he plays and the pictures he draws. Because most of the time, children cannot express themselves with meaningful sentences like us adults, but children can express themselves by painting and creating games. In the Elmalı Case, which we all follow closely with sadness, we witnessed how much the pictures can tell us in the pictures made by the children. As experts in this business, we saw and commented on a little more and at the same time we were very upset. Play and painting are areas where children can show us their experiences that they sometimes cannot express, cannot express or are worried about expressing, and sometimes they throw in their subconscious. Many problems can be experienced in childhood. For example, many childhood problems such as sibling jealousy, phobias, separation anxiety, mourning processes, lack of self-confidence, toilet training, traumas, abuses can be understood and treated by working with painting and games. The games are performed in a play therapy room in a different way than the games played at home. Many toys, symbols, crayons, papers and books carefully selected for all kinds of needs or problems of children are available in the play therapy room. The child is sometimes completely free according to the problem brought by the family in the play therapy room, and while the child's games are analyzed with an understanding of unconditional acceptance, sometimes a structured play therapy session is held. The choice of this varies according to the dynamics of the child and the reasons for being in therapy. After a preliminary interview with the child's caregivers, detailed information and anamnesis are taken, the child is initiated into play therapy if deemed appropriate. The support of caregivers is very important in the play therapy process. Most of the time, the family is also given homework and asked to play games at home and bring their observations to the next session. This process, including families, is called filial therapy. "Filial Therapy" strengthens the parent-child relationship by using the game. Filial Therapy is a psycho-education applied to caregivers and children aged 3-11 and developed to understand the child. It is an exemplary approach. Thanks to this approach, caregivers learn to play therapeutic games with the child, to understand what the child wants to tell in the play, to delve into the inner world of the child, to follow the development of the child and to establish a better relationship with the child at the same time. The child, on the other hand, learns to express his feelings better, develop problem-solving skills and increase his self-confidence. The age of the child is very important in terms of following the cognitive, linguistic, emotional and social development of the child and interpreting the games he plays and the pictures he draws. While making a painting, predictions are made about the paintings, taking into account the chronological drawing history according to which line period it is in. At the same time, if there is an intelligence development problem, pictures and games are professionally included in the process, taking into account all such factors. There are numerous ways of image analysis. The subject of the picture to be drawn by the specialist is determined according to the child's problem or the subject to be determined. Many details such as the colors used, the use of erasers, pens, paper handle, paper direction and so on are important in picture analysis. Every detail has a meaning, but it would be wrong to say that pictures alone are enough to really pinpoint the problem. Pictures are only a technique used to make sense of them in a more functional way. Winnicott, one of the doyens of child psychology, says that the child does not play or draw by chance with the pictures he draws and the toys he chooses to play with. The transition objects that the child puts in their place are important for us, especially when the child is separated from the caregiver, because whatever reflects on these transitional objects will later be included. It is important to make this reflection healthy. Accompanying this process in childhood by a specialist prevents the process from being overcome in a healthy way and prevents the child from being fixed in the psychosexual stages of the child in adulthood and causing pathology. Yalom, the leading name of Existential psychotherapy, expressed that our childhood lives guide us adults in a very meaningful way with these words: "Actually, we are all people who try to act like normal...". At this point the It has also been emphasized by many therapists and psychiatrists that the impact of the 3.5 - 6 age range on adulthood cannot be denied. We all experience our first childhood trauma when we come out of the mother's womb, and then when we meet the father, the "other", which corresponds to around the age of 4 years.
To summarize, using therapeutic play and painting techniques while working with children opens the way for us, the experts, to reveal the child's associations and understand the unconscious. The child expresses his fantasies, desires and actually experiences in a symbolic way through games and pictures. Just as adults bring to their sessions in their dreams, we see that children bring many associations to different elements of the play. These archaic and symbolic forms of this representation that the child reveals in play and painting are related to the primitive mechanism. The child puts these into action instead of talking in games and pictures. It replaces words with action, which actually replaces thoughts. Art therapy with adults takes the place of my work with children. In art therapy, we are free and spontaneous, just as we were in childhood. We freely embark on the journey from the outside world to our inner self. For example, when we work with dance and movement, we move and keep a rhythm without the worry of "I wonder if someone will say something" as in our childhood. We have become so alienated from our childhood that we have actually forgotten our first language, "movement". We forgot to open our arms when we said "Long live" as in the past when we were happy, to cry freely when we were sad, and to shrug our shoulders when we said no. Now our hands and arms just dangle down, as if we're wearing bodily armor, as if we've sworn not to reveal our emotions. We can't help but think that if I do this, I will be blamed by others. We became increasingly isolated from the movement and dance that gave meaning to our lives. We frightened our bodies with the voice of our inner judge saying you shouldn't do this. We became alienated from our essence and lost that naturalness and integrity that we used to play as children. We hope to be able to listen to that natural child in us again and to reveal our happy child mode mentioned in schema therapy. with...
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